Have to agree with Sulcus - that's why you get that ridiculous situation mentioned earlier, where some (idiot) is willing to pay 25 grand basically for a signature on a spin painting. Hirst knows this, that's why he is laughing all the way to the bank! *

Quantum mechanics is not a metaphor. It just works. It works in the sense that it describes phenomena that would otherwise be contradictions.

The metaphors come in when scientists, who are comfortable with 'it works' rather than 'it makes sense', try to explain it to lay people, who still think that their perceptions have a fundamental value that transcends merely being a tool for killing mammoths.

So the metaphors only come in when scientists pander to lay people.

Not just lay people, to be fair. Einstein hated Quantum Mechanics because it spoiled his sense of aesthetics.

There is a happy ending, however. The aesthetics are restored when you move from Quantum Mechanics (a first approximation) to Quantum Field Theory.

No, Quantum Mechanics is not a metaphor. If it were, the computer you are reading this on would not work.

Andrew
Memory... What was that?

Andrew, Newtonian Mechanics worked well enough as a theory to explain various physical properties of existence, but it was superceded by Einstein et al. Does this mean that his explanation of gravity no longer holds, just because we can now count it as one of the four forces holding everything together? The metre used to be defined as the length of a strip marked on a metal alloy, then against caesium's rate of decay and now against wavelengths. Yet we were still able to calibrate for architecture and moonshots.

All science equations are very good approximations that seem to explain what they explain. Because Maths is a hermetically sealed system, things are self-defined within it. Maths may convey an aesthetically pleasing explanation, (pace Einstein) but it is still only one couched within its own terms. It fits, it fits pleasingly, but it does not set everything down as carved in stone since it may be replaced by an even more elegant theory in time. Mathematical equations are also only metaphors, using a language and a logic of maths that distinguishes it from say an explanation in words. String theory may have a whole load of equations backing it up, but scientists also feel the need to explain it in words and with metaphors such as string, because the stand alone maths is too abstruse to anyone but their own cabal (mirroring the relationship between certain visual art & the written text in some ways). I think they are struggling to hold it in their own mind as to what some of these mathematical equations actually translate to beyond the abstract, beyond the self-definition of maths. It must be very hard defining sub-atomic particles that theory shows ought probably to exist, but in fact they can find no physical evidence for. This is the dilemma they face between abstract and metaphorical. "A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle

"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."

Given that the words of Pratchett were the inspiration for this thread, I think it only fair to quote his summary of quantum:

"Add another nought." Writing for yourself is writing for others: "My book could very well end up being reconstituted as a trestle table in a home for battered women." - Alan Partridge

quANTum Theory.

An ant was scurrying across a kitchen floor one summers day going about his business and looking for something useful that he might be able to take back to the colony.

He became aware of a large column rising from the ground in front of him. The ant scurried back to the colony to let the other ants know that he had found something unusual.

Soon, the greatest ant minds of the colony were at the site of the find and three more identical columns were discovered. It was not long before the ants had established the relationship to each other of these objects and that they rose to a high platform.

The ants explored this platform and found more risers at one edge of it which were linked at their highest extremity by a cross beam. Some more risers of lesser girth came down from this beam and joined the platform between the two main risers.

After much analysis and argument the ants were able to conclude that the whole structure was made of wood. They established its shape and size and were able to model the structure in miniture back at their nest. But they never knew that it was a chair because they had no concept of sitting down.